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Abiding or abidding ?

Hi,

I have read in this site in the chapter which talk about irregular verbs that the present participle of 'abide' is 'abiding' but I thought that when we had the following pettern: consonnant + vowel + consonant we must doubling the consonant.

Re: Abiding or abidding ?

Originally Posted by The French

Hi,

I have read in this site in the chapter which talk about irregular verbs that the present participle of 'abide' is 'abiding' but I thought that when we had the following pettern: consonnant + vowel + consonant we must doubling the consonant.

Am I wrong?

Best,

Yes and no. You are not wrong that rule exists but, like all rules in the English languge, it has exceptions.

Re: Abiding or abidding ?

Originally Posted by bhaisahab

Yes and no. You are not wrong that rule exists but, like all rules in the English languge, it has exceptions.

Good afternoon teacher,

You stuck me. There is a rule but sometime like in French we can fall on an exception. Now, I am sure the way to know well all the English's grammar rules is maybe infinite. I have no choice I must learnt it by heart. Like we say in French why to make it easy when we can make it hard. Hope my own translation has a sense in English.

Re: Abiding or abidding ?

Originally Posted by The French

Hi,

I have read in this site in the chapter which talk about irregular verbs that the present participle of 'abide' is 'abiding' but I thought that when we had the following pettern: consonnant + vowel + consonant we must doubling the consonant.

Am I wrong?

Best,

The actual rule talks about letters, not speech sounds. We double the last letter in the verb when the letter denotes a consonant. In "abide" the last letter is "e", so we don't do that. As we don't in "rule" - "ruled", "bury" - "buried", "make" - "making". But in such words as "bet", "bid", "sit", "log" we do double the letter: "betting", "bidding", "sitting", "logged". Note that it doesn't apply to all letters denoting consonants: "say" - "saying".
I am not a teacher.

Re: Abiding or abidding ?

The letter "y" is a bit tricky, because it is sometimes pronounced as a vowel ("tricky") and sometimes as a consonant ("yawn").
Have a nice day too. It's not that cold now, barely freezing. But it was even -20 centigrade this winter.